Mural Painter’s Killing Reminds Oakland That Revival Can Be Slow

Image

Relatives and friends at a vigil last week for Antonio Ramos, who was fatally shot while painting a peace mural in Oakland, Calif., a city that has been celebrating a business and cultural renaissance.CreditCreditJason Henry for The New York Times

OAKLAND, Calif. — As little as two years ago, Oakland seemed to have escaped its reputation as the troubled sibling of its more glamorous sister, San Francisco. Guidebooks and media outlets eagerly described the Oakland Renaissance, in which eight-course tasting menus at the Michelin-star-rated Commis restaurant attracted international jet-setters, and housewives from Marin County wheeled Peg Perego strollers alongside artists with body piercings at the popular First Friday art exhibits downtown. Just the other week, Uber, the ride-sharing service, agreed to transform one of the city’s barren department stores into a gleaming technology beacon.

Oakland, it appeared, had finally arrived.

But the death of Antonio Ramos, 27, who was gunned down before lunch on Tuesday while painting a community peace mural, was a reminder of the stubborn grit and crime that still cling to the city despite the gentrification boom that has fueled its reputation as Brooklyn by the Bay. As of Friday, the killer, who walked away from the shooting, had yet to be found.

“This senseless tragedy is one more wake-up call,” said Dan Kalb, a city councilman who attended a vigil Wednesday in West Oakland under Interstate 580, where Mr. Ramos was shot. “We have to do more to reduce the violence and get guns off the street so we’ll all be safe and can invest in the kind of things that will make this city great.”

The murder rate in Oakland was up 30 percent for the first nine months of 2015, to 65 deaths from 50 in the same period last year, according to the Oakland Police Department. This was after murders in Oakland fell from 126 in 2012 to 80 in 2014, according to police statistics. Robberies and burglaries have been on the decline as well.

Jen St. Hilaire said that she had been mugged, that her car had been stolen and that she stayed home most nights because her West Oakland neighborhood was unsafe. An owner of Scarlet City Espresso Bar, she said she had considered opening her coffee-roasting place closer to home last year but had instead picked a spot on Adeline Street, which straddles Oakland and Emeryville and where there has been a surge of development. She pointed to the luxury condominiums under construction across the street from her business, a symbol of new money that is driving rents skyward.

Image

Friends and relatives consoled one another at a vigil for Mr. Ramos.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

“I couldn’t afford to live in those,” she said. “But I need the people living there to buy my coffee.”

Police Chief Sean Whent said violent crime in Oakland had risen since the start of summer, similar to increases in other large metropolitan areas. Last weekend, for example, five people were shot and killed in Los Angeles.

“We can’t be too reactionary,” Chief Whent said of the recent increase. But he added, “People are worried about gentrification because, I think, it does enhance conflict.”

The mural project that Mr. Ramos was working on was organized by Attitudinal Healing Connection, an Oakland development project aimed at engaging youths to be role models in reducing blight and beautifying neighborhoods. On Wednesday, in the neighborhood where he died, dirty plastic chairs were piled three deep atop tattered couch pillows, and a mattress tagged with black paint was splayed on the curb. The windows and porches of a nearby house were barricaded to keep vandals away.

According to a May housing study commissioned by Oakland, there were more than 30,000 complaints related to occupied blight from 2003 to 2013, with the highest number coming from the flatlands in West and East Oakland where many low-income blacks live.

“He was almost like our P.R. person,” said Amana Harris, the executive director of Attitudinal Healing, who met Mr. Ramos when he started painting for the group in 2012. The mural he worked on was inspired by middle school students who had been asked to reimagine themselves as problem-solving superheroes.

Image

Parts of an unfinished mural drawn by Mr. Ramos.CreditJason Henry for The New York Times

Margie Turner, a blues singer who lives a few blocks from the mural, said she talked to Mr. Ramos a week ago. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s going on that’s bad,” she said. “But I told him what good he was doing. I wanted him to know I appreciated his painting.”

Libby Schaaf, Oakland’s mayor, is courting technology companies to move to her city. About 10 a.m. on Wednesday, she had just finished delivering the keynote speech at the Code for America conference, a partnership between cities and digital experts to explore how technology can be used to make government more effective, when a text message informed her that the police had found the body of a man shot in Oakland Hills. It was the second killing in two days.

“That’s the life of the Oakland mayor,” said Ms. Schaaf, who was elected in November hoping to bring what she called a “holistic approach” to affordability and safety.

“I walk off the stage after giving a speech about technology and I hear about a murder,” she said. “I almost had to throw my phone to the ground. The frustration of seeing the problem, and not being able to wrap my arms around it like we want to, is frustrating and tragic.”

Ms. Harris, the head of Attitudinal Healing, had a more blunt assessment of the challenges facing a changing Oakland. She called it the “fear of the other.” What was special about Oakland, she said, was that its diverse culture mixed freely. But now newcomers and old-timers seem to be in retreat, eyeing one another warily from afar.

“As the community changes and neighborhoods are being gentrified, there are real opportunities to share,” she said. “But I’m afraid they are going to be missed.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Killing of Muralist Is Stark Reminder of Obstacles Left in Oakland Revival. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe